Pre-occupied by Occupy, Part I

Our local theaters pretty much ignored Occupy Boston while it lived (it celebrates its first birthday this weekend, btw).  Indeed, the only actor or writer I know to have engaged with the movement directly was Danny Bryck, and his efforts came to a rather ironic end.  But now that Occupy is safely dead (or at least dormant in the U.S.), the Hub's various lefty poseurs (Company One, Central Square Theater, etc.) have come out in force to sing its praises, and most every local company has suddenly become pre-occupied with issues of class.

These efforts have run the gamut from the sweetly oblique (even the Lyric's Mikado found room for slogans from Zuccotti Park) to the well-intended but under-developed (The Civilians' Paris Commune at ArtsEmerson) to something close to self-satire: the high school clique that runs Company One, for instance, actually intimidated Bryck into giving up financial support for his piece on Occupy in exchange for hosting it.  That's right - they abused him financially before they'd produce his show on financial abuse.  It doesn't get much richer than that.

But you know, I'm pretty philosophical by now about the high-mindedness of the theatrical community (and the critics who cover it). For in the end, the theatre's political hypocrisy only reflects that of its audience (if all the people who actually claim to be committed to progress actually put down their programs and did something about our problems, much progress would immediately be achieved - which trust me, ain't gonna happen).

So I'm more interested these days in parsing the spectrum of our theatrical response to the political issues that Occupy exposed, but obviously failed to solve.  And I have to give the laurels in this particular contest (at least so far) to the Huntington, which in a pair of nearly book-ended productions (Kirsten Greenidge's The Luck of the Irish and now David Lindsay-Abaire's Good People) has limned the issues of apartheid - in terms of class as well as race - that have long riven this city in a way that I think no other local theatre has ever dared to do.  (Tellingly, the A.R.T's response to Occupy was the widely-derided Marie Antoinette - more unconscious self-parody!)

Johanna Day suffers The Luck of the Irish in Good People.

I'm a little shocked by this myself, frankly, given that the Huntington is the theatrical behemoth of the local scene.  But perhaps I shouldn't be.  Several years ago I predicted that this company's engagement with its community, along with its general commitment to high-quality, popular theatre, would give it an edge over the other theatrical elephant in the room, Harvard's A.R.T., and make it the leading theatre of the city.  And of course that prediction has come true in spades. I think the Huntington now boasts something like five times as many subscribers as anybody else, and its decision to anchor the nascent BCA expansion several years ago proved the tipping point in the rejuvenation of an entire neighborhood ("the theatre district" is now the South End).

So it's highly appropriate that the Huntington should turn its artistic sights directly on the Hub.  You could even argue that it's high time - how could Boston have boasted (for decades) two major regional theaters that generally ignored their home turf?  Well, because both stages were aligned with the gown, not the town, in this town-and-gown burg, that's why.  Only to be fair, critics of the Huntington I think would be hard pressed to name any major regional company that has thrown on its home team the sustained critical light that Irish and People have together cast on Boston.  Indeed, I'd like to think (or hope!) that this long-overdue attention will only be the start of a trend - if the Huntington's influential development program kept a focus on not just local writers but local stories, I think it could contribute something really essential to the life of the city.

Just a few more lines of praise for this company before I move on to an analysis of Good People.  Now I don't want to pretend the Huntington doesn't have its flaws; it does.  Its artistic director, Peter DuBois, like his evil twin at Harvard, is clearly too focused on his New York career - although you could argue that some of the culture-lite fodder he has generated for Manhattan and the Times girls (like Sons of the Prophet and Becky Shaw) hasn't been all that bad. And unlike you-know-who, DuBois has put together dazzling seasons in absentia by pulling together probably the best roster of outside directors, actors, and artists that the Huntington has ever seen; to his great credit, he differs from his predecessor, the talented Nicky Martin, in that he seems happy to invite his equals (and even betters?) onto the Huntington stage.

Now I know we've also suffered through the likes of A Civil War Christmas, Before I Leave You, and Captors during DuBois' tenure - yikes!  But every theatre strikes out sometimes, and every company occasionally panders to segments of its audience.  You could also argue that formal experimentation has always been slighted at the Huntington - but I'd argue back that by now the millennials have given formal experimentation a very bad name.  More troubling is the large gap that still lingers around the greatest classics (sorry, but the Propeller frat boys, fun as they are, don't really deliver the Shakespearean goods, and where are Chekhov and Ibsen, not to mention Socrates and Shaw?).

But I have to weigh all that against a truly dazzling series of successes, at least after DuBois' wobbly debut season: not only have we enjoyed masterpieces like Candide, but we've also seen remarkable productions of All My Sons, Stick Fly, Bus Stop, and Private Lives, and worthy versions of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Ruined, The Luck of the Irish, Circle Mirror Transformation, Educating Rita, Fences, and now Good People.  That's a long list - a lengthier stretch of sustained, large-scale artistic success than I think I could credit to any other local theatre in the thirty years I've lived here.

Of course the question is - can they keep it up?  I'd argue that Good People implies they can, as I'll explain in the second half of this series.

Blue-state Mikado at the Lyric

Bob Jolly cuts up as the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado.  Photos: Mark S. Howard.

I've no doubt The Mikado will be a joy forever; and right now at the Lyric Stage, where Spiro Veloudos has once more shoehorned an epic into his intimate space, the Gilbert and Sullivan classic is indeed a joy - well, off and on.  Much of this production is wonderful - either beautifully sung, or hilarious; but unfortunately there are frustrating gaps on both the musical and comic counts that ultimately compromise its success.  I left glad that I'd once more visited this evergreen garden of silliness; but at the same time, I can't pretend it's in full bloom.

G&S purists, however, should have no fear - strange as that may sound, given that the Lyric cast is defiantly non-traditional, the score is oft streamlined, and Veloudos has updated almost all the jokes to the current election cycle (on the poster, Yum-Yum even sports an "Occupy Titipu!" button).  Still, somehow his production feels comfortably traditional, and roughly true to the spirit of D'Oyly Carte, despite all the jabs at Romney, Republicans, and other blue-state bête noires; somehow there's a deep consonance between Veloudos' sense of humor and the Victorians' humorous nonsense (and their faith in masculine prerogatives) that makes everything hang together.


And despite the paucity of Asians onstage, Japan seems no further removed from The Mikado in the Lyric version than it does generally (so the program's apology for the operetta's supposed insensitivities seems - well, a little beside the point by now).  I mean of course I bow, bow, not only to the Daughter-in-Law Elect but also to the Politically Correct - still The Mikado might as well be set in Oz, or Lilliput, rather than Titipu; its "Japan" is simply a fancified gloss on certain familiar districts along the Thames.

Or the Charles, I guess (the backdrop features a bald eagle flapping over Mt. Fuji, and we can just make out a Citgo sign down in Titipu).  At any rate, the point is that Democrats and independents need not fear this production; those partisans of Sullivan's music, however, may have a more divided opinion.  Alas, the score is presented in a highly reduced keyboards-woodwinds-and-percussion version, which is even further compromised for being piped in (somehow this kind of thing always works better when you can actually see the musicians, and at least hear their original acoustic).  Sigh.

Erica Spyres as Yum-Yum, with her famous little maids from school.

Meanwhile the vocals are all over the place - even if most of them are admittedly terrific.  The reliable Erica Spyres sings like a lark as Yum-Yum, and soars brilliantly through "The sun, whose rays are all ablaze" (probably the greatest theme Sullivan ever penned), while opera star David Kravitz likewise takes home vocal (and comic) laurels as the hilariously versatile Pooh-Bah.  Other local lights come through musically but for some reason are a bit at sea theatrically: the wonderful Leigh Barrett, for instance, misses the drollery of Katisha (she gets no help from her Asian-horror fright wig, perhaps the only visual misstep in the show), and Timothy John Smith deploys his booming baritone aptly as the Mikado, but seems to be going for some gonzo (perhaps ground-breaking?) interpretation that I just couldn't figure out.

Both the men's and women's choruses sounded great, too (and newcomer Teresa Winner Blume caught my eye as Pitti-Sing).  Davron S. Monroe, however, made a generally appealing and sweet Nanki-Poo, but was a bit strained vocally the night I attended, while as Ko-Ko, Titipu's harmless Lord High Executioner, Bob Jolly wobbled all over the place.  Now Ko-Ko's are often chosen for their comic timing rather than their musical chops - and Jolly usually has the right comic stuff up his sleeve in spades; but sometimes on this occasion he even seemed unable to hit his marks comically.  Maybe he was just having a bad night, but the performance kept moving frustratingly in and out of focus.

But can The Mikado survive a few bumps in performance?  Yes, it generally can, and the Lyric version does deliver many pleasures, not least among them Janie Howland's elegant set and Rafael Jaen's gorgeous costumes.  G&S fans who are voting a straight Democratic ticket have until October 13th to see it.

Leigh Barrett pines away as Katisha.

The slick and the raw at SpeakEasy Stage

Can you hear me now?  Trying to communicate in The Motherfucker with the Hat. Photos by Craig Bailey.

A kind of identity crisis has been creeping up on SpeakEasy Stage for some time now.  For years their brand as Boston's stylish, de-politicized gay theatre worked for them like a charm; indeed, SpeakEasy's smooth mix of "urban" New York hits and the occasional gay-ish musical gradually made them perhaps our most popular mid-size company.  SpeakEasy's goal was clearly to be the theatre you could take a date to (gay or straight) - and they met that goal reliably; you knew you'd never be embarrassed by a SpeakEasy show.

Now that's no small feat, and maybe it's identity enough; but slowly local politics caught up with the company's okay-we're-gay-we-go-to-Starbucks-too stance, and then seemed to pass it by - SpeakEasy looks conservative now, so the slight "edge" the theatre once had has crumbled.  Sure, the print critics kept swooning (for them, when it comes to edge, less is more), but the smarter theatre folks in town began to talk of SpeakEasy as not just smooth but slick; and a strange sense of datedness seemed to cling to their AIDS dramas and tongue-in-cheek revues.


But then I get the impression the company's brain trust must have begun to think the very same thing; for this season they have clearly attempted to swap the slick for the raw - or at least the Hollywood idea of "raw."  The first experiment in this new positioning is Stephen Adly Guirgis's The Motherfucker with the Hat, which didn't quite succeed on Broadway last year, but is now making the regional rounds as if it had.  Okay, it hardly failed - it squeezed out a little over 100 performances, and the girls at the Times were indulgent; but most other critics decided that "it signifies not fucking much" (as the Village Voice bluntly put it), and the weakness of Chris Rock's central performance was widely seen as somewhat compromising the box office his stunt casting had been calculated to bring in.

Still, judging from its current incarnation at the Roberts Studio, Motherfucker was carefully, and successfully, constructed to please a crowd - at least the crowd that still reads the Phoenix (if that still exists, that is), so you could argue that with it SpeakEasy will successfully extend their brand a bit.  And even if the script is obviously thin, there are some scathingly funny monologues, and several flashes of hot naked flesh, so what's not to like?

Don't look now, dude, but some motherfucker left his hat!

And to be fair, I did kind of like it - kind of; or rather I found it - I don't know, intermittently diverting, I suppose?  Still, as the Voice put it, it doesn't amount to much, and its Tinseltown "rawness" grows cloying (not for nothing was it backed by gay Hollywood honcho Scott Rudin - who no doubt recognized it as un-filmed Ty Burr bait).  The script does have one truly great idea - the plot briefly coalesces around an intriguing twist in the addiction/recovery racket. If only Stephen Adly Guirgis had realized what he had in this and developed it!  But he didn't, so he drops the meme (and the dramatic ball), and the script grinds on in a more predictable, episodic groove (watching it is a bit like watching a full DVD of some "gritty" cable series).

Not that the script wasn't heavily developed - it was, and how; as I mentioned in an earlier post, Guirgis has said that he worked on this text with a team of actors for some three years.  Thus it's almost a case study in what development can do, and what it can't.  And what development can do is produce a top-notch actors' showcase  - most everybody in Motherfucker gets a big, show-boating rant, and a deep, soul-searching moment, too (sometimes you almost feel there should be a spotlight moving from actor to actor as they launch their respective numbers).

But what development can't do is, well, develop anything; so it's no surprise that in Motherfucker we watch helplessly as the playwright's best ideas drift off into a welter of sitcommish structures and laugh-track rhythms.  But then the bottom line is that the whole play hangs on a relationship we simply don't buy - we're supposed to believe that the doomed romance between the addicted Veronica (Evelyn Howe) and the recovering Jackie (Jaime Carrillo)  is not only hot, but viable - and it patently isn't.  In fact Guirgis doesn't even bother to give it any individual color or texture; he knows it's a generic set-up, a "love" that exists only to be destroyed by Jackie's jealousy once he notices the eponymous hat left in Veronica's flat by that unknown motherfucker.

From then on, we're supposed to pity them as we would star-crossed lovers in a pop song, I suppose, even as we marvel at the harsh, amoral world they inhabit (nobody has a moral compass, you see!) - that is when we're not howling at their effing  outrageousness! (I know, it's corny as hell, but hey, that's showbiz.)  As I said, Guirgis does unveil one fresh insight amid all this recycled guff - it turns out his slumming addicts are on a higher moral plane than the twelve-step gurus who guilt or guide them into sobriety; those going cold turkey, Guirgis points out, often turn to mind games and worse for their jollies - like Jackie's life coach "Ralph D." (Maurice Emmanuel Parent), whose idea of the straight and narrow proves twisted, and shockingly two-faced.  And of course, Guirgis reminds us, even if you've beaten your addictions, you can still be a loser! This clear-eyed cynicism is bracing - and we begin to hope the playwright will tease it into a conflict between Jaime and Veronica (which by rights should be the core of the play).   But Guirgis seems unable to hang onto his own originality; indeed, he can't even really keep a bead on any sense of rising action, and so by the finale things aren't so much raw as maudlin.

Another go-for-broke face-off in Motherfucker, just like the marketing guy wanted.

Still, there is some fine acting to be found in this showcase.  Certainly Maurice Parent and Melinda Lopez (as Ralph D.'s long-suffering wife) turn in galvanizing performances that are sure to be remembered come awards-time.  Meanwhile Evelyn Howe's Veronica, though generic, is still heartfelt, and Alejandro Simoes almost puts over the artificially-constructed gay-bi-straight sidekick schtick of "Cousin Julio."  But alas, at the center of the production there's something of a void - word has it that on Broadway, Bobby Cannavale brought a deepening despair to the lead role that pulled Guirgis's disconnected scenes into some sense of downward spiral; but the likable Jaime Carrillo finds no such plunging arc; he's simply over his head, both as character and actor.

Part of this, however, may be the fault of director David R. Gammons.  You can count on two things in a Gammons production - the visuals will be striking, and the lead performance will be misdirected.  The Motherfucker with the Hat carries on this storied tradition: Eric Levenson's scenic design is intriguingly conceptual (we seem to be in some sort of rehearsal space, with "MOTHERFUCKER" scrawled across it - an apt enough comment on the play's genesis!), but once again Gammons' star, like the stars of his Medea, Red, and Blackbird, has clearly been misdirected - or just not directed.  Oh, well!  The formula seems to work for Mr. Gammons - he gets no end of work, so I'm sure we can look for another iteration of his production model shortly.  In the meantime, my hat is off to Lopez and especially Parent for the memorable mojo they bring to this mofo.

On not really wanting to sit through Einstein on the Beach

Sigh. This weekend marks the final performances of Einstein on the Beach at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

And I really thought I was going to go.

But somehow I just don't seem to be able to make myself.

 I don't really want to see it, you see. I just feel as if I should.  After all, Robert Wilson wound up imploding into a kind of pissy avant-garde Liberace.  (I know - the old queen finally came out of the closet; big deal.)  The idea of visual art as theatre has led to a fringe scene of slow, pretentious dumb shows, but little else.  And I've already heard much of the music, and like almost all of Philip Glass, it starts out fun but gets old fast.  And of course the scientific ignorance of Wilson's modernist-mystical bull is perennially irritating - all that clueless downtown-zen crapola about Einstein always drives me crazy.

I'd really rather be here, and see something new and interesting.  But when will I get a chance to sit through four-and-a-half hours of Wilson's silly but striking imagery again?

What can I say but "stay tuned"?

[Update - I stayed in town to see King Lear at Trinity and Paris Commune at ArtsEmerson.]

Arrested development at Merrimack

What's past is prologue in Homestead Crossing.

William Donnelly's Homestead Crossing - at Merrimack Rep through September 30 - is the kind of new play that is just good enough that you wish it were even better.  It's steadily amusing - and to be fair, it's also, finally, intriguing; yet it almost cries out not to be produced yet, because it's only about two thirds of what it could be.

But how is that possible, you may ask, given the rigors of today's "development" process?  Well - you've got me there! But honestly, by now I have no faith in said process, and I wonder - can we just start calling it the "grooming" process instead? Because over and over again, I find scripts that have gone through development come out buffed to a high (superficial) sheen, but are still afflicted with their original structural and thematic issues (which are now in a way permanent).  If you doubt me, simply check out The Motherfucker with the Hat at SpeakEasy, which spent three years in development, and came out stuffed with hilarious zingers - yet structurally it could almost pass for a first draft.


A similar problem afflicts Homestead Crossing; you can feel playwright Donnelly coasting on his dialogue skills for close to an hour (out of a 90-minute play).  He's even sophisticated enough to hint that he knows exactly what he's doing - one character actually quips about scripts that only boast "a pivot and a twist."  So we pretty much know what's coming - especially as the play fits neatly into one of Merrimack's favorite genres: the two- or three-hander that conceals a spooky little surprise.

But when the big reveal does arrive in Crossing (the play takes a left turn into Twilight Zone territory, as re-written by Edward Albee), we're hardly cross.  In fact we're relieved that Donnelly has, indeed, had an intriguing trick up his sleeve all along.  But then we quickly sense we're being hustled toward the exit, or at least the epilogue - what in a more ambitious play would have been a new springboard of dramatic speculation, a major complicating incident, here turns out to be the climax.

Face to face - but with a fantasy.

Which strikes me as too bad, because I think Donnelly has more in him.  What this (local) playwright has given us so far is a witty, wearily bemused meditation on the fate of many a long-term relationship: Noel (David Adkins) and Anne (Corinna May) are a couple clearly becalmed on the shoals of mutual frustration when we meet them on a rain-soaked afternoon in the comfortable confines of their suburban home (atmospherically designed and lit by Anita Stewart and Paul Hackenmueller, respectively).  Their dysfunctional calm is shattered, however, by the arrival of the soaked Claudia (Lesley Shires) and the stoned Tobin (Ross Cowan), two damaged free spirits kind of on the lam from something, and kind of about to make a break for freedom somewhere else.

Hmmm.  If you can sense the buried parallels and potentials in this set-up, then you're halfway to guessing the metaphysical back-flip Donnelly has in store for you.  The trouble is that beyond that big conceptual gambit, the playwright doesn't have too many cards to play; so his script quickly settles into the well-worn grooves of a certain familiar boomer fantasy.

In the meantime, though, audiences can still enjoy the skillful ensemble on display at Merrimack.  The youngsters, Shires and Cowan, make a stronger impact, I think, than their seniors - Cowan is effortlessly sexy in his shaggy way, and Shires's fractured sparkle is particularly intriguing, although David Adkins's carefully wary Republican did often tickle my funny bone.  Only Corinna May, as his beyond-bored wife, seemed to me somewhat too submerged in her characterization; it was hard to believe that even a wrinkle in time could really awaken her lust for life.  And the stripped-down acting style that is Merrimack's signature - here guided by director Kyle Fabel - didn't help her much; it's fine for a richer script than this, but with such streamlined stage action, Donnelly's one-liners leave us aware of a certain thinness in both meaning and manner.

And it's hard, as the curtain falls, not to note this play's echoes of such meatier conceptual cousins as Albee's A Delicate Balance - a script which continually extended the reach and ramifications of its superficially-similar set-up.  Does Donnelly have that kind of dramatic mojo in him?  I don't know - but if he does, he's going to have to bring it to the party himself, it won't be "developed" for him.

Amanda Palmer update! She's as inspiring and giving as ever!

As you may know, local chanteuse and former "human statue" Amanda Palmer holds the record when it comes to begging gullible hipsters to fund her career - in fact, her foolish fans coughed up $1.2 million to fund her current album, Theatre is Evil (love the title!).

This didn't stop the vocally-challenged "singer," however, from turning right around and asking musicians to play on her tour for free.  (On her blog, Palmer promised that in return for a "quick rehearsal" and a performance, "we will feed you beer, hug/high-five you up and down (pick your poison), give you merch, and thank you mightily.")

Seriously - how dumb ARE Amanda Palmer fans?  Maybe a few are finally waking up - she's  being widely called either an idiot or, well, unreliable (ahem!) in her claims regarding her album and tour costs.  Palmer replied with a convoluted explanation because, she says, she thinks this is "important shit."  But few observers have been convinced.

And this particular observer isn't at all surprised.  But we admit, from afar the show is fairly amusing.

It's time for another time lapse, and this is a great one

Notes from John Eklund:

 I am a photographer from Portland, Oregon. I want to share the beautiful NW region through my eyes with time-lapse photography. I choose to shoot locations that appeal to the way I would like to interpret the story of time. Here in the Pacific Northwest, there are endless opportunities to document the magnificence of the world around us. I have discovered that when time is the storyteller, a special kind of truth emerges.

Various locations include ...
Mt. Shuksan, Crater Lake, Mt. Bachelor, Mount St. Helens, Oregon's Badlands, Painted Hills, Cape Kiwanda, Mt. Hood, Lost lake, and Cannon Beach

I started this project in July 2011 and shot the final scene in August 2012. I took approximately 260,000 images. I used 6.3 TB of hard drive space.
 
Website: www.TheArtOfTimeLapse.com
Email: john@theartoftimelapse.com

Song: Be Near
Album: Wonderfall
© RYTONE Entertainment, LLC & (P) Farish Music International (BMI)

Running on empty?

The Kite Runner feels as if it's in the dark politically.  Photos by Andrew Brilliant.

Watching The Kite Runner (through September 30 at the New Rep), you can almost taste the good intentions of every one involved.

But you can also sense the sweet savor of sentiment, and the aroma of commercial compromise.
On the one hand, the production represents a worthy attempt by this erstwhile theatre - which is embarking on a new era under the leadership of BU's Jim Petosa - to get beyond its political comfort zone, which is generally bounded (as is the case with most every theatre) by Martin Luther King, second-wave feminism, and, you know, "the gays."  Not that there's anything wrong with that - still, as someone once said, there's a world outside of Yonkers, and it's time the New Rep got out there, as ArtsEmerson, Merrimack Rep, and even the Huntington (to some degree) have managed to do.

So three cheers for programming a show like The Kite Runner, which is set largely in Afghanistan. The New Rep's core audience, however, is superficially liberal but deeply conservative, and aligned with Israel politically (a bare-bones production of My Name is Rachel Corrie proved divisive just a few years ago).  You'd think, then, that setting a production anywhere near the Middle East, much less in Afghanistan - nexus of so many failed imperial gambits by various superpowers, and of course Osama bin Laden's crib for years - would be folly.

But you'd be wrong, for The Kite Runner has been carefully calibrated to minimize these concerns.  On its surface it seems to engage with the recent history of Afghanistan - the collapse of its brief "republic," the ensuing coups and killings, the Soviet invasion, the U.S.-sponsored resistance to that invasion (which led to the rise of the Islamist mujaheddin, and, of course, bin Laden) - there is much, much to chew on here; Brecht himself probably couldn't do it justice.


And lord knows novelist Khaled Hosseini can't.  Okay, hold on - maybe that's unfair; I haven't read the original novel, and perhaps there's more honest engagement with history in its pages.  But in Matthew Spangler's ardent but blank dramatic synopsis, the turmoil in Afghanistan feels like little more than an exotic backdrop from which various villains can twirl their mustaches (if not their turbans).  Evil and cruelty lurk here (while the United States is portrayed as a happy consumer paradise) but alas, little moral or political complexity.  Even though there were hidden links, of course, between the two societies during this period - which would play out most spectacularly on 9/11; but you'd never guess any of that from Hosseini's account.

Okay, you could argue Hosseini could be cut some slack on this score - for much of its length, his tale is a child's fable (indeed, at times it plays like To Kill an Afghan Mockingbird crossed with Oliver Twist), and so it trades in the familiar tropes of bullies and childhood dangers, of barely-understood political storms and sudden escapes by night.  The trouble is, half the script is a tale of vexed adulthood - and it's all told in grown-up flashback (with none of the convincing childhood ventriloquy of Mockingbird, much less the satirical edge of Twist, both of which effectively limned the political tenor of their respective times).

And just as the text has been stripped of any and all troubling political and cultural contexts, its lead narrator, Amir (Nael Nacer) has likewise been washed clean of any foreign depth or texture.  He's a character with almost no character, in fact, save one or two tent pole emotions like "GUILT," and his story of redemption is thus a generic one.  Oh, sure, it's an "epic journey" all right - but everyone knows that's just theatre-speak for "a liberal melodrama that lasts more than two hours."

Still, even shorn of any political significance, I think Hosseini's conceit could work as drama - if adaptor Spangler had drawn us into his narrator's mind and heart, and conjured some dialogue (even internal dialogue) over why, in a moment of cowardice, the young Amir betrayed his best friend Hassan to a vicious gang of thugs (as a result, the poor boy was raped - Hosseini lays it on pretty thick).  Or perhaps if Hassan had then developed into something more than a sweet, forgiving Christ-figure - a kind of Jesus of Kabul - the script might have gained some sort of thematic or psychological traction.

But no such luck.  Instead we're led by the hand through competently rendered, but all-too-familiar, epic-journey clichés (some of which are almost amusingly shameless - not only do we get the showdown-between-good-and-evil, but even the last-minute-suicide!). Meanwhile Nael Nacer - who hasn't had much luck in his recent roles, it seems to me - is forced to dash about the stage in a constant mode of heightened concern, explaining everything and trying to keep us engaged.  Alas, somehow director Elaine Vaan Hogue is of little help on this score - her staging, like the script, is competent, but little more, and she doesn't conjure much magic from key scenes like the central kite fight (below), either.  What kick the show does have largely comes from Robert Najarian's convincingly-designed violence (which is often nastily believable).

The climactic kite fight.

Yet oddly, while the central performances are only so-so, there's a good deal of life around the edges of the production, as several young performers shine in supporting roles.  Luke Murtha, for instance, has become known for stealing scenes along the fringe; now, in his first outing on a larger stage, he steals the whole production right out from under his Equity co-stars, with a heart-breaking turn as Hassan.  Meanwhile another fringe player, Johnnie McQuarley, whose hamming basically drove me crazy in Romeo and Juliet and Troilus and Cressida, settles down into a surprisingly confident, low-key command as Hassan's father.  And newcomer Paige Clark, also far too broad in her recent outings, was likewise appropriately scaled and insightful in several roles.

So perhaps if Vaan Hogue isn't an artful dodger of dramatic traps, she's still a skillful acting teacher - or were these young performers inspired by Christine Hamel's convincing (at least to these ears) dialect coaching?  I don't know, but I should note several subtle cameos from veterans Scott Fortier and Dale Place, too. I suppose I must add that unfortunately none of these folks made believable Afghanis - but let's not go there, that way madness lies! Indeed, the surprise performance of the production was by someone who couldn't have looked more out of place in Kabul if he tried - young John Zdrojeski I believe has only just graduated from BU (from which I imagine Mr. Petosa has installed a kind of young-actors' pipeline), but already he's clearly capable of an intriguing professional performance, even as a villain who does everything but kick the dog.  I expect to hear more from Mr. Zdrojeski, and soon.

Sigh.  And now comes time for one of my perennial laments - would all these performers had a great text to sink their teeth into!  But they don't; they've only got Spangler's and Hosseini's synthetic Dickens.  Oh, well - what can I say?  At least it's an epic journey.

Do tell . . . this week marks a special anniversary

It has already been a year since the military ended its policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and lifted its ban on gay men and women in the service.  And as was the case with gay marriage in Massachusetts some eight years ago, Western civilization did not fall, and in fact very little changed - except in the lives of those who had long suffered under the weight of institutionalized bigotry.

Of course, there have been some reported harassments, and there are still issues to be addressed (such as medical insurance for the wives and husbands of gay personnel).  But the new atmosphere is perhaps best summed up in the video above, which was posted last December, after Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta won the right to the coveted "first kiss" when the USS Oak Hill docked in Virginia after 80 days at sea. Officer Gaeta chose to share the very public smooch with her girlfriend, Citlalic Snell - to cheers from an enthusiastic crowd. The ensuing YouTube clip drew 1.5 million viewers. We're still waiting on the collapse of Western civilization.

Shaking off the summer

It has been harder than usual this year for me to shake off the summer, I admit.  Or maybe it's just that this was a particularly lazy summer for me? Perhaps!

At any rate, I went to my first show of the season last night and thought - I'm just not ready for this!

And I've got such a backlog, too, of unfinished series about The Dark Knight (ugh), and the role of the critic in the free market, etc., etc.  Sigh - the usual suspects!  Are you getting as tired of these topics as I am? How many times do I have to ponder the role of the critic, for instance?  What will spilling a little more verbiage over our current cultural dilemma really accomplish?

Oh well, I suppose duty calls; but I'd really rather have another cosmo and hang by the pool while the world ends, thank you very much.

Preferably with that guy in the gif.

Sex and the Sistine Chapel

The Prophet Daniel, before and after cleaning.

I returned to Rome first and foremost to see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which I hadn't visited for something like thirty years, and which I've been eager to inspect ever since its popular (but controversial) cleaning.

From the many images in the press, I expected an utter transformation.  Still, it is one thing to see "before and after" photos, like the one above (of the prophet Daniel) - and something else again to encounter Michelangelo's entire masterpiece suddenly made luminous, and glowing in the flesh (or at least the fresco).  Indeed, the moment I gazed up at the fabled ceiling, I knew my 4,000 mile trip had been worth it.

Of course the cleaning and restoration has had its detractors - whose arguments were often passionate, for they hinged on a troubling question: had the cleaners (whose M.O. was to strip away the varnish applied over several previous "restorations," and get down to the paint-impregnated plaster itself) unintentionally removed some of the master's own a secco treatments of his imagery? (A "fresco" - Italian for "fresh" - is painted directly on wet plaster, so the paint becomes a part of the surface; "a secco" - or "dry" in Italian - paint is applied after the plaster has set.)


It's true that there is reason to believe this may have been the case in some areas of the ceiling - a degree of modeling of minor figures was clearly lost in the transition (as were the details of pupils on a few eyes).  But the evidence is far from conclusive, as the vast majority of the modeling survived, even in the lesser figures (as in my favorites of the "ignudi," below left and right). It is also known that previous restorers (unbelievably) were fairly free with their own a secco flourishes; their additions - some of them three centuries old - may have long been taken for Michelangelo's.

And even if some of the original modeling was sacrificed, this loss must be balanced against the ravishing color field that the restorers have revealed (and which maps re-assuringly to the tones of the Uffizi's Doni Tondo, Michelangelo's only surviving painting-on-panel; I took the bullet train to Florence during my trip partly to see it again, too).

It's hard to over-estimate the meaning and impact of this dazzling change, so I can sympathize with those academic idolizers who have been reeling ever since the unveiling of the Chapel's vibrant new ceiling and walls.  The Sistine Chapel was one thing until the cleaning, and now it is another; all the theory and interpretive history that had accreted to its imagery had been stripped away with that varnish.  So in a way, even if no actual modeling by Michelangelo was lost, the "old" Sistine Chapel had vanished in its entirety, anyway.  It is no more.

I can think of no parallel to this in my experience of art - the presentation of what other iconic masterpiece has ever been so drastically altered?  Where once the prophets, gods and angels of the Sistine Chapel seemed to glower behind a kind of amber veil, now they glow in hues so vibrant they seem to almost hover in space before the plaster.   Indeed, prior to the cleaning, the painting seemed almost recessed, a kind of titanic cavern in which lurked the mystery of creation; now, however, the fresco seems to press itself upon you like a lover - or perhaps God himself - and I had to fight the urge to simply lie flat on the floor and succumb to its raptures.

The grandest homosexual erotica ever?

This eroticization has rarely been commented on directly, but of course it's in complete accord with the larger arc of Michelangelo's art, and the Renaissance project in general - which over and over again subverts its Biblical pretext with pagan sexual idealization.  The David, for instance, is utterly transformed by its forceful erotic aura (by which Michelangelo converts his hero into a paragon of humanism, not pietism, whose moral stature is reified by his physical perfection).   Hell, even in the Doni Tondo, gorgeous studs are lounging just behind the Virgin, and the Sistine Chapel ceiling probably counts as the greatest, and most gorgeous, gallery of sublimated homosexual erotica ever constructed.

Of course that kind of comment is the sort of trendy, academic-sex trope that I usually hate; so never fear: you don't have to be gay to appreciate Michelangelo's vision!  And if anything, the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel has only brought the universal dimensions of that vision into bolder, clearer relief.  Indeed, it seemed to me that the ceiling's newly vibrant palette drew out detail that had been almost invisible before.

Take, for instance, the iconic scene that is essentially the centerpiece of the entire work (and one of the cornerstones of Western art), The Creation of Adam (below).  Even prior to the cleaning, it was stunning, but now it seems even closer to the floor, more "present" to the viewer; I noticed more than one person stretch out their own fingers toward it unconsciously.  I was struck even more, however, by the sense of depth and detail now revealed in it - particularly within the folds of God's scarlet mantle - and by something else as well.  For the first time, I noticed how the folds of that crimson nimbus roughly map to a cross-section of the human brain - and quickly discovered I wasn't alone in that perception; the idea was all over the Web.  Indeed, medical scientists have begun to find similar anatomical "puns" elsewhere in the ceiling as well.

Here Michelangelo's subversion of his religious yoke is at its clearest, and most resonant.  In The Creation of Adam, Jehovah reaches out directly from the mind of man to create Man himself; the painting's schema is perfectly circular, and it operates not only as an unforgettable illustration of an ancient text, but also as a probing metaphor for the mind-body problem (which, to be fair, in concert with the beauty of Nature and the inevitability of death, largely validates the existence of religion in the first place).  But are the ceiling's restorers responsible for this sudden insight?  I don't know, but I like to think they had something to do with it - and I'm grateful to them either way.

The mystery of creation and the mind-body problem.

Dining out in Rome

The view from La Pergola is expensive.

As you may have guessed, I'm a bit of an epicure - and while the partner unit is not, we were joined on our recent trip to Rome by a serious foodie, my friend Marie, who has been going with me to Stratford for years.  So the pursuit of great food was definitely on our Roman menu.

Of course, as is the case anywhere, a superb meal in Rome comes at a substantial price.  At La Pergola (view from its tables, above), or Agata e Romeo - Rome's internationally-renowned restaurants - dinner for two will set you back some $400-500.

And - well, we're crazy, but not that crazy.

Still, we're also serious about our fleeting taste sensations, so we were willing to part with significant amounts of cash for the occasional moment of culinary transcendence.  And we enjoyed quite a few such epiphanies in Rome.  In fact, I'd hazard the following generalization (which must come with the same caveats as all generalizations): in a smack-down between Paris and Rome as a "top food town," I might give the palme to the Eternal City - by a Roman nose, of course.  This is not because the top restaurants are better in Rome - I couldn't judge that, I haven't been to the most expensive redoubts in either burg.  But my personal experience is that, of the second tier of restaurants, as well as the average ones on the street, the Roman eateries are more reliable.  To be blunt, I've had some really bad food in Paris cafés - greasy, stale, you name it - but I didn't really have a single bad meal in Rome, and I had plenty of absolutely delicious dinners, with wine and dessert, for under $50 (a rarity in Boston).

Another generalization, though - what's missing in Rome, it seemed to me, were superb sommeliers.  I'm sure they're out there, but we didn't encounter any - you know, the kind who can match a wine precisely to each course, so that it clicks into place like some gustatory gear, revealing new horizons in both chalice and platter.  On the other hand, however, we never had any bad wine in Rome, either, and we were struck by how often even a 20 or 30 euro jug (which would retail for maybe $12 in the US) of a Montepulciano or some Piedmontese rosso would open out in the glass into something complex and delicious.  With so much pleasure readily available, maybe Romans don't need sommeliers.

Another surprise - the Roman idea of al dente is quite a bit sturdier than its limp American cousin; so expect to really chew your food in Rome.  But also expect pasta so fresh that it soaks up all its accompaniment, so the dishes taste like a kind of sweetly solidified sauce.  Yum.

But back to the chase - where did we eat, and how was it?  Well, I had to give top laurels to La Rosetta (left), just off the Piazza de la Rotonda (before the Pantheon, where a lot of people get more "rotonda").  And I'm hardly out on a limb here - it's widely hailed for Rome 's best seafood.  We sneaked out of a superb lunch for about $85 apiece (count on close to twice that for dinner), but that included both wine and a scrumptious sparkling rosé as an aperitif.  The room is elegant, the staff sophisticated and engaging (our delight in the food so charmed them that they gave as an extra splash of that rosé for free), and there's a refreshing lack of pretension to the place despite its standards.  And the food was indeed at the highest level - try the prawns with lettuce cream (which come nestled in a kind of sculpted flower), or the monkfish with orange sauce, if you're there; you'll remember both dishes for the rest of your life.

Only a step behind, I'd say, were Il Piperno, tucked away in the Jewish Ghetto, and Il Bacaro, just off the Piazza Navona.  Il Piperno is dedicated to Jewish Roman cuisine (as you might expect from its location), which is about as rich and pungently succulent as food gets.  Indeed, our repast was almost too rich - I all but overdosed on the vitello agnolotti, it put me into some kind of cream-induced digestive shock; Marie and I were both reeling on the walk home.  (Other highlights of the menu were the cheeses and the charcuterie, btw.) And I have to mention the setting - Il Piperno is literally hidden in a courtyard called the Monte de Cenci, near the Theatre of Marcellus; basically it's down what appears to be an abandoned alley (looking at it, Marie said, "You're kidding, right?").  But the tiny piazza itself - abloom with umbrellas - is exquisite, and the Il Piperno waiters kick it old school, in white jackets and bow ties.  It's a wonderful experience.

Il Bacaro (right) is more casual, although it too is hard to find - look for the canopy of vines at the end of the Via degli Spagnoli, just north of Piazza Navona.  If the focus was on preparation at Il Piperno, here the emphasis was on simplicity and freshness.  The dishes were sophisticated and beautifully balanced, though - and so fresh, I swear I thought I was nibbling basil and valerian straight from the vine.  The pomodoro sauce on my appetizer was fresher than any I've ever had, anywhere - fresher than I thought pomodoro could be, as were the zucchini flowers in my prawn-and-pasta primo piatto.  The only gap here is the wine list - actually, right now there isn't any wine list (they're reworking it); instead, there's a wine guy, who was nice enough, but as I said before, we never really found a great sommelier in Rome.  Still, even with this gap, I might give Il Bacaro a slight edge over Il Piperno - although be warned, it's a far busier nook than Il Piperno's hideaway.  But in Rome, you have to get used to dining in the street, and sharing space with mopeds, sedans, and the occasional horse.

Wait, though, I'm not done - here are a few recommendations that come with lower levels of sticker shock.  The closest we got to a postmodern wine list we found at Gusto, a whole gustatory complex near the Spanish Steps, which was not only up-to-the-minute in its influences but very reasonably priced to boot.  The only problem here was the almost amusingly indifferent wait staff, which pushed the always-leisurely Roman standards of service to some hilarious new height (or depth).  Other good bets in the same area (we were staying on the Bocca di Leone) were Palatium, an "enoteca" focused on very strong (but affordable) local wines and solid dishes, and Caffe Ciampini, that boasted only a standard menu but a wonderful view (from just below the French Academy and the Pincio Gardens, over the whole city; eat your heart out, La Pergola!) as well as charmingly antique atmosphere (vines, street lamps, a tinkling fountain - the works).

There were still more, far more restaurants where those came from; too many to count, actually - if there's a church on every corner in Rome, then there are two restaurants on either side.  Most of these, however, were more average - which meant they were fine, basically, and better than much of what you can find here in the Hub.  When in Rome, after all, you do what the Romans do - and what the Romans often do is eat.  If you doubt me, check out the image below of the Piazza de la Rotonda, before the Pantheon, after sunset - when the restaurants put out extra tables and transform almost the entire square into one big dining room.  If you imagined that those famous scenes of excess from Fellini's movies were exaggerated, think again - I've never seen such expanses of happy gluttony. But I have to admit, maybe food like this is worth a few hours in hell.

I have returned . . . and I have heard your cries . . .

. . . and I promise to start writing again. I know, I know - with me gone, "there's nothing to read!" It is, alas, true; yesterday I did the rounds of the blogosphere and only woke up about four hours later (I was jet-lagged, but still).

How, how did the blogosphere get so boring - arguably even more boring than the print press?  I don't know, but I will once more attempt in my small way to change that dynamic and shake things up a bit.

First, though, I have to return to a few unfinished arcs from the summer, before I began seriously vacating (such as my analysis of The Dark Knight Rises).  Then on to the new season, which by now is already in full swing.  Plus I hope to engage the ever-charming Greg Cook in a little discussion of Os Gemeos at the ICA.  Then - I don't know what then, but I'm sure I'll think of something.  As always, thanks for staying tuned!

When in Rome . . . you don't blog much . . .

Yes, that's yours truly, with my buddy Marie (the partner unit was behind the camera), in front of something even older than we are, the Pantheon; the Hub Review is in the Eternal City for a week, which means blogging will remain sparse, alas, till my/our return.  I wish I could say I'm sorry about it, but I'm not, not really . . . . but I will tell you everything that happened when I get back!